No one had more intelligence and better monitored the disconnect between James and the Cavaliers than Miami Heat president Pat Riley. He had informants and spies everywhere, including his own star, Wade, who had been telling Riley for most of two years they could lure James to South Beach. The Heat had everything they needed to sell James, except for what finally arrived on the eve of the NBA draft: salary-cap space.
On the night before the draft, Riley hung up on a call with Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti to complete a salary dump of Daequan Cook(notes). It wouldn’t be long until word traveled to everyone. LeBron James. Dwyane Wade. Chris Bosh. The Heat had the salary-cap space to make this happen. All these months of planning, all these contingencies, and now the greatest free-agent coup in history was within reach.
When the NBA powerbroker and adviser to James, William Wesley – famously known as Worldwide Wes – heard the news, he was duly impressed. After all these months, all this careful planning, Riley had cleared the cap space to give the three stars of free agency contracts starting at about $15 million.
For months, Wesley had believed James’ choice would be the Chicago Bulls, but no one had counted on Riley’s relentlessness in clearing enough cap space to accommodate the three stars. Free agency wouldn’t officially start for another week on July 1, but from then on, Wesley had two words about LeBron and the Heat for the closest of associates: done deal.
Worldwide Wes had understood something about James the Cavaliers refused to believe, and even James’ childhood buddies from Akron were still somewhat unwilling to accept: LeBron James was never re-signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now it was a matter of securing him the proper complement of teammates for the greatest free-agent haul in history.
Riley was 65, a five-time NBA champion, a Hall of Famer and he wanted a dynasty to fade into the sunset of his basketball life. He had kept his word, continuing to dump contract upon contract in a high-wire act that left him without a safety net.
Riley believed he could unload those contracts. And mostly, he believed in his own power of persuasion. He is still the biggest presence, biggest voice in the room. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, a statistics analyst, met with Chris Bosh at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 armed with an iPad. Morey’s cult followers on the web hailed it as a resounding success, but Riley never believed he was losing Bosh to the MIT gang.
Riley believed in his ability to get into the room with James and sell him on the way the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers sacrificed salary, shots and statistics for the greater good of a dynasty. Most of all, Riley believed he could benefit on the close relationship that James had with Wade, and that there wasn’t a franchise with cap space that could offer such a compelling case to the two-time defending MVP.
Riley ran the Heat franchise in a bold way. He had two things to sell the best players in the NBA: South Beach and his bigger-than-life persona. The Heat don’t bother scouting internationally. They didn’t believe much in the college draft. They constantly planned around free agents and trades, a high-risk, high-reward way to steer an organization.
All along, teams believed Bosh would choose to play with James or Wade. What Bosh truly wanted was to play with James and Wade. It was commonly accepted that Bosh’s time with the Toronto Raptors taught him he couldn’t be the centerpiece player, and so he embraced the idea of playing the part of Robin to James’ and Wade’s Batman.
Wade had come to believe James would likely leave Cleveland, but became largely certain once the Cavaliers lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. For the first time, James could no longer blame his supporting cast and coaching for a playoff exit. His peculiar performance in a Game 5 blowout, lethargic and distant, pushed James on trial.
Within days of the season’s end, James and Carter traveled to Winston-Salem, N.C., for the birthday party of New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul’s(notes) young son. With James on the premises, rules for the toddler’s birthday party included no photos, no video.
James was close with Paul, and free agency and the possible connecting of the players’ futures did come up in conversation. Paul was unhappy with the Hornets, and frustrated to see so many of his Team USA teammates on championship contenders and playoff teams. James and Carter long had been trying to recruit Paul to their LRMR marketing company and the Rose/Wesley/CAA cluster for his contract representation.
As a prelude to Paul eventually going into business with James, Wesley began working the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets to get them to try and trade for Paul with the strong suggestion that it could deliver James in free agency. Both tried, both failed.
As Wesley worked front offices, his stature started to rise out of the subculture of the sport and into mainstream news coverage. Carter wanted credibility beyond the public perception of him as merely James’ childhood buddy, and ultimately he could no longer hide his jealousy when Wesley started to get too much public recognition for packaging the players in free agency. Privately, everyone in the circle knew James was leaving Cleveland, and it would be harder for his Akron guys to get credit for the deal.
During the NBA Finals, Carter met entertainment mogul David Geffen at a party in Los Angeles. Carter talked informally with Geffen’s people about the possibility of them attempting to purchase a majority share of the Los Angeles Clippers and signing James with the team’s cap space. Carter even made sure to show up with Geffen courtside at Staples Center for a game in the Finals to elevate his stature as a major mover, but buzz died fast when Clippers owner Donald Sterling made clear he had no interest in selling his team.
After a Yahoo! Sports column detailing the strife within Team LeBron in late June, Carter unwrapped his jealousy and called the New York Times to insist Wesley would have nothing to do with choosing a team. Wesley had unsuccessfully shopped Kentucky coach John Calipari to the Chicago Bulls as a preferred coaching candidate for James, but the Bulls made a run for Izzo and ultimately settled on a less-expensive client of CAA, Celtics assistant coach Tom Thibodeau.
Wesley wanted the commission on Calipari’s pro contract, but no one wanted to hire him. James did have a strong bond with Calipari, but ultimately he was much more interested with the ownership, front office and talent on the floor. James understood that coaches were easily disposable, but the rest had more staying power.
Nevertheless, Wesley reacted with caution over Carter’s public proclamation to back off, and slid further into the background. Still, he stayed in close contact with James through a Nike official, Lynn Merritt, and let Carter cool down from his public tantrum. Carter worried far more about Wesley than Wesley did about Carter. There were such doubts about the kinds of advice that Carter had been giving James, about the staying power of that bond, that Wesley was willing to play it out and see who would still be standing beside LeBron James.
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